Volusia officials get 'Tough Love' on dealing with homeless

Robert Marbut's model depends on turning a fragmented homeless-service system into a centralized one that pulls people off the street for good.

By ANDREW GANTandrew.gant@news-jrnl.com

As Robert Marbut drove through Daytona Beach on Friday, he saw and heard what he has grown accustomed to seeing and hearing: Homeless people gathered at the public library, in the park, around a bus stop or in line for food.And then community leaders explaining how this scenery has persisted despite everyone's effort to fix it.“All the things I've heard today, I've heard everywhere I go. I literally have not heard anything new here,” Marbut said to a room full of government officials, homeless advocates and others concerned about Volusia County's visible homeless problem.“If I leave the room and I have not offended you... I have not done my job,” he added.“If you want to keep getting the same result you have, keep doing the same thing you're doing.”Marbut, a former San Antonio city councilman, college professor and homelessness consultant, once labeled “Dr. Tough Love,” visited Daytona to lead a discussion on Volusia Safe Harbor, a proposed 24/7 homeless facility that mirrors several other “transition” programs launched across the country.Momentum for the program has been building in Volusia, which recently sent a team of county officials to tour another Marbut consulting project, Pinellas Safe Harbor in Clearwater.Daytona Beach city commissioners sat in the front row to hear Marbut on Friday.Two Volusia County Council members attended, along with various elected officials from other cities. The room was full.Marbut's model depends on turning a fragmented homeless-service system into a centralized one that pulls people off the street for good.It's not designed for entire homeless families, but individuals who routinely get arrested for minor offenses and clog the local justice system.County Judge Belle Schumann, who started the campaign for a Safe Harbor system here, reported that 50 people in Volusia County account for more than 6,100 arrests costing more than $12 million.Volusia Safe Harbor's costs, and who will pay for them, are still unknown. Schumann estimated the facility would cost $1.5 million to build out near the Volusia County Branch Jail. Volusia County Councilwoman Joyce Cusack, county community assistance director Dona DeMarsh Butler and Daytona Beach Housing Authority Executive Director Anthony Woods all had budget questions. The answers aren't all clear yet.But Marbut said ideally the cost would be split in 25 percent shares among the county, the cities, the business and tourism community and faith-based or nonprofit organizations. Hospital districts also could contribute out of the money saved when homeless people make fewer emergency-room visits. He said without a new program, Volusia's homeless population won't just stagnate but worsen. Marbut estimated a 15 to 20 percent growth in the homeless population coinciding with increases in domestic violence and post-traumatic stress disorder among military combat veterans. “Incrementalism doesn't work,” he said. “I'm about disrupting the entire way you do it and starting it from scratch.”Throughout a roughly two-hour discussion, Marbut cited statistics to argue drastic change does work.He said similar programs in other places have reduced homeless populations by at least 80 percent, and reduced jail populations by 25 percent.Jail stays cost $100 a night, he said, while Pinellas Safe Harbor costs $13 a night.In San Antonio, he said, the program pulled 1,000 people off the streets permanently in the first two years, cut jail stays by 700 people per night and reduced homeless emergency-room visits to four a day, down from 24.The program is more effective than jail, he said, because it is so intensive. It provides mental health and substance abuse treatment, job training and placement, family reunification and help with basic but forgotten life skills. For the first 10 days, new residents just get lots of sleep and hydration, two things that are taken for granted but hard to come by living on the street.“If you feed people in parks, or on a street, or drive your car up and give 14 meals out the back of your car, all you're doing is growing homelessness,” he said. “If you want to dramatically change how the Daytona Beach area deals with the homeless, align your feeding with all the holistic services. And the only place people should ever be fed is when you're in a 24/7 program that's holistic that deals with all the issues.”

Editor's note: An earlier version of this story incorrectly referred to County Judge Belle Schumann as a circuit judge.

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